


Bad Idea

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:53:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23729338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kit Delgado knows two things:1: This is a bad idea. A terrible, horrible, absolutely-the-worst idea.2: She's going to do it anyway.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson & Original Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader, Natasha Romanov & Original Female Character(s), Sam Wilson & Original Character(s), Steve Rogers & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	1. Kit Delgado and The Joys of Passing Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can it, Wilson," Kit snaps, and she sighs, rolls her shoulders, cracks her neck, and leans back against the counter. 
> 
> "Okay, kidnapping a government agent, great, sounds like fun. May I ask why, exactly?"
> 
> It's silent for a good, long moment.

Nothing good comes from a phone call that opens with an apology is a philosophy that hasn't failed Kit, so when she pauses her Criminal Minds binge to answer a phone call from one Sam Wilson, and he opens with "I'm sorry, Kit, but-", Kit's mood goes sour.

"Nope. Uh-uh. No way. I'm away from the phone right now and can't participate in your shenanigans. Leave a message after the beep-" Kit cuts him off, half-yelling into the speaker even as rolls off her couch. She's getting ready to walk out the door even before Sam talks her into going along with whatver he has planned- he's persuasive like that. Even though she's _staying away from that stuff_ , he's using his Hero Voice and she isn't stupid.

"Kit-"

"Sam," Kit hisses into the phone, "I have had a steady job and a nice life and if this is about what I think it's about I do not want any part of this, I am not some superhero, I am a _barista_ , I-"

"Please?" Sam asks, gently and kindly and it's so very _Sam_ it hurts. Kit can do nothing but sigh in resignation.

"Oh, I hate you for this, I really do. Truly, Sam Wilson, you menace to society, you're the _worst_ "

"No, I'm not,"

"No, you're not. How soon do you want me over?" Kit sighs because as much as she puts up a fight, she would die for Sam Wilson. Truly, she would. He was, she thought, one of the best men she'd ever meet. She never told him, but he'd saved her life. It's why she didn't hang up, why, despite spending her whole life hiding, she puts it all on the line the second he asks. Because Sam Wilson is the best man she'd ever meet and she can only try to be there for him like he was for her.

"You're already late," Sam says and cuts the call. Less than thirty seconds, Kit notes, because of course.

* * *

Kit doesn't think she's anyone ever open a door so fast. It's impressive, really, that she didn't even get the chance to knock before she's being dragged inside.

"Jesus, Sam, give a girl a warning before you..." Kit doesn't like to think herself the type to trail off mid-sentence. She really doesn't. But noticing 1/3 of the Avengers sitting in her friend's kitchen will do it.

**Sam better be right about this.**

**This is gonna be fun to watch. Like a car wreck.**

**она выглядит нервной.**

"Sam," She says, her tone low and demanding. The Avengers threw her for a loop, the Russian another. It didn't seem like they trust her any farther than they can throw her. Well, maybe that isn't quite accurate- they trust her much less than they could throw her. Super-soldier-ness and all. 

"I can explain," He says, holding his hands up in faux-surrender. She gives him the driest look she can muster and feels a little bit better when he winces.

"Please do," She says, but he's not the one that speaks next.

"Sam said you can help," The Russian one, Black Widow, says, seemingly demanding an explanation herself. Although it's not a question Kit really feels like she's been sent to the principal's office. Kit wouldn't say she's trained in reading body language, but after a lifetime of seeing the way peoples thoughts manifest physically, she's incredibly good at it. And the Widow's every movement unnervingly blank, utterly poised, the reflection of training, and lots of it. Spys. Good thing she's a telepath, Kit thinks, reaching out again in search of Sam's aforementioned explanation. 

**Pierce launched that strike.**

**Please don't kill me.**

**Интересно, может ли она понимать русский язык?**

"я на самом деле не могу," It slips out before she can help it, and she can see Sam grin in the corner of her eye as she winces. She is _so_ revoking his free coffee privileges, the shit's enjoying this far too much.

"я думаю, что вы можете," Black Widow responds cooly, seeming wholly unfazed. Her mind tells a different story- she's completely uncomfortable with the thought of being exposed like that. Kit winces- she does feel a bit guiltier than normal about the whole _violating numerous boundaries_ and all, but well. Avengers. Avengers in Sam's kitchen.

"Don't worry, I don't peep if I can help it," Kit says, doing her best to not sound like an awkward teenager and failing miserably. All she gets is Sam and Steve looking at her blankly.

Right. They don't speak Russian.

"Hey, Sam?" Kit asks

"Yeah?"

"That explanation you promised me?"

"Right. Uh, well. We need your help kidnapping someone," Sam says, and for the second time in so many minutes, Kit is left speechless.

"A S.H.I.E.L.D agent," Captain fucking America adds, as though it would help.

**она справляется с этим хорошо**

**I wish I could get a photo of your face right now**

**She's not gonna run, is she?**

"Can it, Wilson," Kit snaps, and she sighs, rolls her shoulders, cracks her neck, and leans back against the counter. "Okay, kidnapping a government agent, great, sounds like fun. May I ask why, exactly?"

It's silent for a good, long moment.

**ебать правительство.  
**

**Because they're the bad guys, Kit-Kat**

**S.H.I.E.L.D's been compromised.**

It was Captain America's thoughts that offer the best explanation, so he's the one she turns to. He's taking to the whole telepathy thing rather well.

"Compromised?" The thoughts that follow aren't the worded type, but they get the emotional bits across well enough; both Avengers are pretty worked up about it. She catches a few words in passing, mostly **Hydra** and **Zola** and **parasite**. Not the best outcome, but an explanation nonetheless.

"Huh. Not great, yeah," Kit sighs, rubs a hand over her face, and wanders over to Sam's cabinets to make herself some coffee. It's too goddamn early for this.

It's too goddamn early for all of this.

"So, what can you do, exactly? Sam didn't exactly elaborate much," Captain America asks. Kit has to suppress the urge to put her head through the wall.

"Well, what _did_ he tell you?" She asks. She's never liked talking about it, mostly because talking about it is a fast track to getting offed. The last person she'd told was Sam, and she had quite literally puked with fear- and a hangover, but, hey.

"He told us that you're a telepath," Black Widow says, and for the first time, her words don't unnerve Kit. They put her at ease, at least a little. Kit sits down across from her at the kitchen table. She might collapse with stress, and she'd rather be sitting down if she does. Kit doesn't really have another option, so she takes a collecting breath and begins. She's white-knuckling her coffee mug already, and nobody is the room is missing the way she's staring longingly at the door.

"That's not wrong, really. I mean, you know I can hear your thoughts when I listen- I'm on meds for it, I used to hear everything, all the time, like hypersensitivity. But it's not just thoughts, really. Someone found out their grandma died right next to me, once. Couldn't stop crying for _hours_ ," Kit feels like she's about to puke, again, but it's like opening floodgates. She couldn't stop talking if she tried, even though everyone in the kitchen is watching her.

"I can project, too. It's not too strong, but- here, you wanna see?" Kit asks, and Black Widow hesitates for a few moments, before exchanging a glance with Captain America and nodding reluctantly. Kit makes an effort to not look at their thoughts, but she can still tell they're uneasy. So she does an exercise -that Sam taught her- picturing an endless expanse of water and then pushing that calm outward.

The effect is palpable. Captain America's shoulders slump, Sam lets a lazy grin fall across his face, and Black Widow- well, she doesn't really react, visibly, but Kit can _hear_ alarms going off in her head. It feels vaguely like being sedated, so Kit doesn't blame her.

"Kiara Delgado, Carnival Psychic. Call me Kit," she says, extending her hand across the table to alleviate the palpable tension in the room. Black Widow pauses for a moment, before offering up a half-smile and shaking Kit's hand.

"Natasha Romanoff, Superspy. Call me Nat. The artifact over there is Steve," she says, and Kit tries her best to suppress her laughter. She's at ease for the first time all day.

* * *

It doesn't last, because of course, it doesn't.

Kit finds herself reclining against the cool cement wall in the shadow of a particularly expensive-looking building a few hours later, content to hide behind the baseball hat and shades Sam forced her into. She'd said something snarky about the only protection they afforded was from the sun but had put them on anyway- nobody likes being caught on security cameras.

"You ready, Kit-Kat?" Sam asks over the phone. Right. She was still on the phone with him.

"Born ready," she says and pretends that she didn't need to force her voice steady. 

"Showtime," he sing-songs and hangs up on her.

"Rude," Kit scoffs, rolling her eyes and turning on the men. She rounds on her heel, facing the swarm of suited men. Identical, the lot of them. And not a single one of the poor bastards knows what's coming. 

Kit decides to look before she jumps, and immediately wishes she was a little bolder. She did not need to see that girl and the frog-looking senator-

"Gross," she gags under her breath, then takes a deep breath, cracks her neck, and pushes outward. It takes a few moments before she zeros in on the thoughts she's looking for, but it's darkly satisfying.

The guards' thoughts are mostly feedback, scanning their surroundings, typical soilder stuff, and that makes it _ridiculously_ easy to slip her own thoughts in undetected. 

**Cover Sitwell from the rooftop.**

_**It's safe and it will stay that way.**  
_

**Man, athletic, alone in a baseball cap.**

**_The table is empty._ **

**The crowd is busy- could hide possible threats.**

**_There is nobody remarkable in the crowd._ **

**_It's safe and it will stay that way._ **

**_That table is empty._ **

**_There is nobody remarkable in the crowd._ **

And then Sitwell. Jasper Sitwell. His mind's a slimy little thing, and Kit's suddenly overcome with the desire to wash her hands when she looks at it. 

**_Send them away._ **

**Why do they still keep him around?**

**_It's safe. Send the guards away._ **

**Oh, that's graphic.**

**_You cannot be harmed. Send the guards away._ **

Sitwell, as though just noticing he had a security detail with him, glances up, looks vaguely surprised to see them standing there, and promptly waves them off.

She can't hear him, but she sees one guard step forward- the leader of the pack, to asks him if he was sure. 

**Wouldn't want to leave him unattended so close to Insight.**

**Why am I sending them away?**

**_He's questioning your authority. He is your inferior._ **

Kit can't help but feel the tiniest bit smug when Sitwell snaps at the man, and, judging by the wave of embarrassed resignation rolling off Sitwell's target, it wasn't out of character. 

All in all, it leaves him completely alone when Sam calls.

A success, if she ever had one.

* * *

"What about that girl from accounting, Laura?" Natasha asks, and Kit would laugh if she wasn't about to start gushing blood from her nose. The whole telepathy thing isn't as easy as it seems.

"Lillian. Lip piercing, right?" Steve replies, and Kit _does_ laugh at that one.

"Yeah. She's cute," Natasha says, but the conversation is cut short by Sam Wilson dropping a screaming Sitwell back on the roof. Kit lets her defenses drop completly, because she can't affort to miss, well, _anything_. It's a whole telepathy-defense system, and Kit isn't a fan.

**Oh God oh God oh God**

**I can't fucking make rent this month.**

**_They'll do it. They'll kill you._ **

**The Prime Minister of England-**

**Trip him you can do it do it now.**

**Project Insight involves three heavily armed, satellite-linked designed Helicarriers to proactively strike out against individuals that oppose or threaten HYDRA's goals. The algorithm used every variable of a person's life such as bank records, voting patterns, and even standardized testing scores. There are at least 700 million individuals targeted. Project Insight will change the world.**

**Look at the woman across the street.**

**I'm gonna puke oh God.**

**_Save yourself_.**

**I can't get out.**

**I'm forgetting something wheres the grocery list?**

**He was supposed to show up an hour ago.**

**Stupid stupid _stupid_.** ****

**The essays due in half an hour and I haven't even started.**

**I was supposed to get a raise last year and now I can't afford fucking insulin.**

"Zola's algorithm is a program- for choosing Insights targets!" Sitwell exclaims, and Kit stops amplifying his fear because she's half-sure his heart will give out if she does. Or hers. Like Russian Roulette with her brain.

"What targets?" Steve demands, and Kit feels her nose begin to bleed. She curses, tugging her jacket sleeve over her hand and pressing it to her nose. It takes her a moment to realize that the concern in Natasha's.

"You! A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defense, a barista working downtown, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone whose a threat to HYDRA!" Kit jerks a step backward. Nat shoots her a concerned look, and Kit digs her fingernails into her palm. Hurt's like a bitch, but Kit can't be distracted, even if she's totally that barista working downtown.

"Now, or in the future," Sitwell sighs, presumably out of breath from all the wild gesturing he did. Impressive, for a man on all fours.

"In the future? How could they know?" Steve asks, and Kit would force-feed him some warm, fuzzy feelings if she had any to spare. Finding out that she was still a target can be unnerving, apparently. So can extreme blood loss from the nose.

**_You can't see me._ **

And Sitwell laughs. He fucking laughs. 

"How could it not?" Sitwell rises to his feet, and Steve shifts his feet so that, although she is essentially invisible to Sitwell, he was still blocking her with his body. It's appreciated, despite the fact that it probably would have offended her had she been completely coherent.

**_You can't-_ **

"The 21st Century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it." Sitwell says, and Kit gives in. It's getting rather exhausting, turning herself into white noise in another person's eyes. And the amount of blood drenching her face is rather concerning. Besides, she's probably the only one there that knows what Sitwell's on about, judging by the waves of confusion rolling off her friends.

"Everything important you ever do is registered online. Every bit of recorded information, any important milestones, every phone call you've ever made, every place you've ever been to. You'd have to break a few thousand laws to get at it, but that isn't an issue to Nazis, is it, _Jasper_?" Kit moves forward, squaring her shoulders and letting Sitwell register her as a threat. It's far easier to erase any familiarity than herself completely.

**_You don't recognize me. You will never recognize me._ **

**I'm gonna die today.**

**One step two step three step four.**

**Holy shit, she's bleeding.**

**My phone's almost dead.**

**Project Insight involves three heavily armed, satellite-linked designed Helicarriers to proactively strike out against individuals that oppose or threaten HYDRA's goals. The algorithm used every variable of a person's life such as bank records, voting patterns, and even standardized testing scores. There are at least 700 million individuals targeted. Project Insight will change the world.**

"Who- who are you?" Sitwell asks, and Kit doesn't even need to look to see he's terrified all on his own. Maybe it was the way his eyes blurred whenever he looked at her. 

"And then what?" Kit asks and sees Sam recoils a bit at the cold edge to her tone.

"Oh my god. Oh my god, Pierce is gonna murder me,"

"And then what, Jasper? Come on, use your big boy voice," Kit snarks, and Sitwell _cowers_ from her.

"And then the Insight Carriers scratch people off that list. A few million at the time," Sitwell says, and his voice shakes. Bastard.

* * *

Kit doesn't know how Sam talked her into the car. Crammed between Sitwell and a car door, there's a serious chance she's gonna put her head through the window soon.

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks," Sitwell whines and Kit reconsiders. She'd rather put his head through the window.

"Then why don't you try and stick a cork in it?" Sam snaps from the driver's seat. Kit snorts a laugh, earning a glare from Sitwell that makes her mood go sour again. She thunks her head back into the headrest and closes her eyes.

"Insight's launching in 16 hours. Don't you think we're cutting it a bit close here?" Natasha leans forward to ask.

"I know. We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans, access the helicarriers directly," Steve replies, stiff and stoic and _scared_.

"Not gonna work," Kit groans. She's got a killer headache pounding its way through whatever part of her brain the telepathy comes from, and it's not helping being cooped up in a car with four of the most stressed-out people she's ever met. 

"What? Why-" Steve asks, halfway through twisting in his seat when Kit sits bolt upright.

"Go!" She screams in Sam's direction, and Sam does not need to be told twice, the car jolting forward with a screech. 

It doesn't work. Kit screams and attempts to press her body through the seat behind her as a metal arm reaches across her chest and grabs Sitwell by the collar, yanks him through the broken window, and tosses him into an oncoming truck.

Kit doesn't pull back into herself fast enough and immediately adds being hit by a truck to her "Worst Ways to Die" list, which is currently being topped by dying in a stolen on the freeway after being shot through the car roof like a fish in a barrel.

Kit does not like being shot at, it seems, because her body refuses to move even when running is literally the only fucking thing she wants to do. It doesn't seem to matter, because Nat is grabbing her and tossing her into the front seat, and it's enough to snap her out of it.

She thinks, briefly, that the shooter must be a robot becuase thats how her life is turning out and she never picks up on any, seemingly non-existent, emotions. But she certainly wasn't the one thinking about shooting at Sam's head, and she has a split second yank his head down before the headrest is reduced to scrap metal and fluff.

"Brake!" Kit screams; and Steve caught on pretty quick because she's being thrown against the dashboard before she can get the word out all the way.

Sitting still in the middle of the freeway, Kit rights herself, jammed between Sam and the seat console and blinks away the blood trickling into her eye just in time to see the man digging his arm into the ground. Metal arm. Right. 

Kit is terrified out of her mind, bleeding from a head wound that was presumably from becoming closely acquainted with the steering wheel, and realizing it's highly likey she's going to be dead by sundown. So, of course, she cracks a joke.

"This that Winter Soldier you mentioned or did I get him confused with some other metal armed assassin?" Kit's voice is strained, and nobody laughs.

The Winter Soldier (apparently) straightens up, and it's also not double vision when she sees herself sitting in the car from 20 feet away, because she's seeing the entire seen through tac goggles, which includes the military-grade van barreling at them from behind. God damn it, she hadn't taken her meds that morning. No wonder she was hearing everything.

Third time is not the charm in this situation, because Kit's warning doesn't even get the chance to leave her lungs before the car is rammed from behind and she re-aquaintances herself with the dashboard for the second time in a minute. Her body picks that as the best time to severe her tie on reality, and the last thing she hears before going back is the Winter Soldier thinking about his mission.

**водитель и шпион и блондинка и невоенных**

She feels faintly surprised as her vision went black. It's the first coherent thought she'd gotten from him. 

* * *

She comes to laying in the middle of the freeway. As far as rude awakenings go, it was certainly topping the list.

It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds since she'd passed out- she can still see a car they'd passed fleeing the scene down the road. Sam, who also looked like he'd just been thrown into the middle of a freeway, hauls her to her feet.

It's silent for five, blissful seconds, which is quickly replaced by everything all at once. She's grateful that Sam hadn't let her go, because she immediately went limp in his arms.

**Alpha in position.**

**My arm my arm's broken.**

**Permission to eliminate obstacles.**

**Bastard these bastards are gonna pay.**

**My car's on fire Dad's gonna kill me.**

**Bravo approaching south.**

**In position.**

**Wonder if Cap can even be killed.**

**Grenade to the jaw should do the trick.**

"Grenade!" She calls out to Steve. She's fighting to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head and hopes it was enough. There's the sound of glass shattering and Kit can't help but grin.

"Steve: 1. Bus: 0," Kit mutters, still half-limp in Sam's arms.

"Huh?" Sam asks, putting an arm under Kit's knees and holding her bridal-style to his chest. She's suffered far too much head trauma to be offended.

"Guns," Kit murmurs, her vision flickering in and out. Half the time, she's not even the one doing the seeing. Sam, she quickly decides as she toes the line between consciousness and unconsciousness, does have a superpower. He understands everything, even when it's Kit relaying a thought she isn't sure who belongs to while half-delirious. And fast enough to get them behind a car without getting shot.

"Can you stand?" Sam asks, and she knows he means "Can you run away?" without even hearing him think it. She squeezes her eyes tightly, pulls back into herself, and reopens them. Her vision is remarkably clear, and she's not lying when she nods. Survival insticts and adrenaline have Kit's back, it seems.

"Yeah. 'M fine. Mild concussion," Kit dismisses.

"Hate to break it to you two, but we got bigger fish," Natasha calls over the hail of machine-gun fire that's turning their cover into metallic swiss cheese.

"I've never liked that phrase" Kit hollers back, but she gears to run anyway, and Sam grabs her by the hand and hauls her to her feet. It's keep up or die, and Kit isn't to keen on the latter.

Seconds later, she's tackled over the cement divider. Natasha's remarkably calm with the situation.

"Thanks," Kit calls out, and pauses for the briefest of seconds. Steve's fine, she's between Natasha and Sam, and no civilian's been hit- yet. "Where can a grenade go off, y'know, without grenading anyone?" Kit asks, out of breath and scared out of her mind. If she stopped to think, she'd probably freeze again. Luckily, Natasha does the thinking for her.

"You're ten o'clock, other side of the divider," Comes the answer, and Kit resolves to hang out with her if they both survive this. First, though, there's that issue. Surviving.

Natasha almost clocks her when Kit raises her hands to her mouth and whistles as loud as she possibly can. Her nose starts to bleed again, but there are worse things to worry about. She doesn't have much (any) energy to pull some stunt like she did with Sitwell's men. Still, the men at the Winter Soldier's back quit firing, looking around for where Kit's whistling was coming from. 

They're all hearing the whistle come from a different place than the rest of their team- three diffrent cars get shot up, and the place Natasha had pointed out does, indeed, explode. Natasha looks at her, and Kit shoots her a grin. Earning the respect of an Avenger, mid-fight? She'll have to add it to her resume.

"Thanks," Nat huffs, echoing Kit.

"Don't thank me yet," Kit says, wiping away the trickle of blood before it starts dripping off her face, "They're not gonna fall for that much longer, we gotta go."

"Hey. Stay outta the way, alright?" Natasha asks, sincerely, and then shoots her a wink and bolts across the road and jumps off the bridge. Kit sighs, takes out her phone, and lets Sam drag her to cover- an overturned truck.

Natasha picks up before it can even ring.

"Where is he?"

"Directly above you, leaning over. Looking down- now." Kit says into the phone. Her voice is remarkably steady for the amount of adrenaline flooding her veins. She hears three gunshots and a string of curses in Russian.

**ебать дерьмо повредил крышку глаза.**

You rock, Nat. Kit would keep helping, but her tongue feels like lead in her mouth. When did her arms get so heavy?

"Woah, Kit, you're not gonna go passing out on me again, are you?" Sam asks, sliding his arm beneath hers.

"'M fine. Lots of noise," Kit mumbles, resisting the urge to plug her ears and curl up in fetal position. Someone's been shot- nobody she knows. Still, not good. She _really_ doesn't want to puke on-

**у меня есть она найти его.**

"Sam, the civilians. They're gonna kill anyone that gets in the way," Kit realizes just what the Nazi bastards had meant with "eliminate obstacles,".

"I might suggest staying out of the way, then. Coast clear?" Sam asks, and he's still worried she's gonna pass out. It makes sense, she's thinking the same thing.

"Yeah. There's a lone gun on your six, go cover Cap for me," Kit grins, and Sam shoots her a look, sets her down, and takes out a knife. Of course, Sam brings a knife to a gunfight.

Thirty seconds later, Kit's certain that everyone she came with is still in once piece and she can get up without passing out. Bare minimum, achieved.

She can also get to Sam without getting shot. Even better.

"Go! I got this!" He calls out to Steve, whose below them and is looking vaguely shocked that they're both still here. But he still goes, which is a good move. Trust in Sam Wilson.

"That goes for you too, Kit-Kat," Sam tells her over the sound of the machine gun he's still firing. Kit's more than happy to oblige- she wasn't going to be the greatest help if they had to keep yanking her out of the line of fire. Trust in Sam Wilson is something she does with no hesitation.

"There's an alleyway, to the right. You see it?" Sam asks, and Kit, seeing the Winter Soldier stalking down the street in the opposite direction, is already gone.

She's halfway there when she stops, tenses, pauses. There'd been no gunshots for the last minute, but she can feel something wrong.

**¿Dónde estás, mija?**

**Oh god oh god.**

**I hope she knows I love her.**

**Run I need to run.**

Kit stops in her tracks, curses in three different languages, and sprint back towards the Winter Soldier, whose after Natasha. She's not coming back for either of them- she'd told Sam. There are civilians in the way, and Kit is intimately familiar with what happens to civilians who get in the way.

 _"Move!"_ Kit's screaming, her voice and mind working in tandem, sending even the injured ones fleeing en masse into the alleyways that she herself had been headed for. As the crowd clears, Kit realizes why, exactly, she'd been running away- because, standing stock-still in the middle of the road is the Winter Soldier- sans goggles, wielding a machine gun.

Terrified, stuck in the middle of a street with no cover in jumping distance, Kit does the only thing she can. She _reaches_ , a futile effort in the end, becuase his mind's stuck behind walls of sheer agony and Kit would normally run away but she doesn't have _time_ and-

**прочь с дороги.**

It's his thought, and she doesn't have time to move, doesn't have time to register what it meant before her body jerks sideways, and she falls to the floor. She doesn't even realize why until she looks down and realizes her shirt didn't have those holes in it before.

The realization that those holes are there is drowned out by a deafening wave of agony. She clamps her lips together, desperately trying to swallow the pained whimpers clawing at the inside of her throat. Kit presses a hand against the fucking _holes in her body_. The Winter Soldier turns his back on her, presumably satisfied that she's been taken out of the equation.

**она скоро умрет.**

Another whimper fights its way out at that. The master super-assassin thinks she'll bleed out. It doesn't do much for holding onto hope. She's pressing one hand over the bullet wound, which is gushing blood (gross), and also not doing much to ease her fear of death and using the other to drag herself backward, out of the middle of the street.

She gets as far as an overturned car on the side of the road before realizing that she was alone on the street when she was shot. As far as the only people she thinks will rescue her are concerned, Kit Delgado is safely hidden away in an alleyway. She likes to think of herself as a tough bitch, but at that moment, there is something very tempting about the thought of feeling nothing at all. She lets her eyes roll back, and everything goes dark for a moment.

It's quickly replaced by a dream. She recognizes this one- as far as dreams go, it's not such a bad one.

_"Stop it, Kiki!" Elly hissed through her teeth, looking thoroughly ticked off. It only served to motivate Kiara in her endeavor to prove that she can do more dangerous things than her sister. Kiara Delgado had spent a good portion of her young life chasing after her older sister, including, and not limited to, into situations an eight-year-old shouldn't be sprinting into. Such as the upper branches of a tree about a story tall._

_Eliana had, to the chagrin of every authority figure in her life, taken to climbing anything and everything she could get into at a young age. Kiara, in turn, had taken to everything her older sister took to. It ends up with Kiara bouncing on the end of a branch, all because Elly said that Kiara wasn't allowed on it, she was far too dense and the branch was far too high. It was also the first time that Kiara had climbed higher than her older sister._

_"Seriously! Don't make me tell Mamí!" Elly snapped, putting on her best impression of the menacing glare that the girl's mother used to scare them into submission. Kiara stops bouncing, weighs her options, and sticks her tongue out._

_"Look! No hands!" Kiara cried out, delighted, shooting her hands in the air and pretending she's on a rollercoaster. Elly's eyes widened in shock, and she looked like she was going to explode with frustration. A mission accomplished, in Kiara's book. She's prepared to give up the act, crawl back to the trunk and force Elly to help her down when her sister moved up, as though she was going to snatch Kiara off the brach and haul her inside._

_If there's one thing Kiara hated, it's when her sister tried to parent her. Reminding her to take her shoes off when she came inside, making comments about the candy she got at the corner store and telling her that she can't climb the tree._

_"Stop it! I'll kick you!" Kiara snaps, and as though to prove her point, flails her legs in her older sister's direction. Elly just snarls and tries to grab her ankle._

_Kiara scrambles to get back down the tree, already planning to tattle on Elly to Mamí. She grabs onto the branch next to her and swung down to a larger branch a few feet farther down the trunk._

_She felt her stomach drop before she felt her foot slip, and then she realizes that she'd missed the branch entirely. A scream sticks to the inside of her throat as she falls, not quite making it out before she hits her head on the way down and everything goes-_

_White. Blinding white, hurtling past at far too many miles per hour. The sensation of all the important internal organs getting left behind is vaguely like that of a rollercoaster. Except there were no straps in place, no safety net._

_There's something up above. A train, maybe. No, definitely a train._

_Kiara fell out of the biggest tree in the neighborhood and broke her forearm in two. It didn't hurt, which was mostly the point._

_Even if it did, there's a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't have felt quite so much like agony, the ripping, blinding pain of something tearing off that wasn't supposed to. It only lasts a second, but what happened after regaining consciousness isn't much better. Being dragged injured through the snow is something that can't be suffered conscious for long._

_At least Steve got away. Those bastards wouldn't touch him._

_Wait._

**кто такой Стив?**

**я не знаю Стива.  
**

**это не правильно. я знаю Стива**

**кто такой Стив?**

**кто-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. She looks nervous.
> 
> 2\. I wonder if she can understand Russian?
> 
> 3\. I really can't. 
> 
> 4\. I think you can.
> 
> 5\. She's coping with this well.
> 
> 6\. The driver and spy and blonde and civilian.
> 
> 7\. Get out of my way.
> 
> 8\. She'll be dead soon.
> 
> 9\. Who is Steve?
> 
> 10\. I don't know a Steve.
> 
> 11\. That's not right. I know him.
> 
> 12\. Who is Steve?
> 
> 13\. Who-


	2. Kit Delgado & Co. Destroy Government Property

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someones calling her name, but she can hardly hear it through the roar of blood in her ears. She blinks once, twice, and by the third time she can just make out Steve's face. He looks concerned, but she can't really blame him.
> 
> "Kit?" Steve asks, again, pressing a hand to her forehead. She tries to swat him away and is half-surprised when it works. She swallows, thickly, and pushes herself up from when were was leaning against the stone wall.
> 
> "It's him. They're wiping him," Kit says, exchanging a look with Steve. Not good.

Kit survived a car crash, a firefight, the world's shinest assassin, a bullet to the ribs _and_ the torso, and losing enough blood to fill a kiddie pool.

And Nick Fury, dead man walking, was telling her to get dressed.

"Are we not gonna address the fact that you have nine lives or some shit?" Kit grumbles, gingerly accepting the clothes he'd passed her way. At least they looked nicer than the blood-stained hospital gown she was totally pulling off.

"I could say the same to you," Fury says, and Kit doesn't like his tone at _all,_ "I'll see you in five, Delgado" He calls out over his shoulder, and Kit glares at his retreating back.

* * *

"I feel like I'm interrupting," Kit says, floating in the door awkwardly. Fury's staring down at a picture of Alexander Pierce and isn't feeling very warm and fuzzy.

"Kit!" Sam calls out. It's not subdued, but Kit can tell that whatever happened while she was out didn't exactly head their way. He strode over to where she stood, leaning against the doorway with one Dr. Fine hovering at her side nervously. He's acting as though she'd be shot, honestly.

"Sam, you bastard. I'm blocking your number after this," Kit says through a grin, no real bite into her words. He wraps her up in an enthusiastic if ginger, hug, and Kit has never appreciated him more. She nearly shakes with relief that's not her own.

"You wouldn't dare," Sam grins, snaking a singular arm beneath hers and helping her hobble to the table. A good idea- she couldn't even tell what the hell kind of signals her body would be trying to give her, as pumped full of drugs she must be.

"Oh, watch me, Wilson," Kit says, no real bite to her words as she eases into a chair next to Nat. Sam stands behind her, and Steve across. The only reason Nat's sitting down is doctor's orders- if she's gonna blow up a government organization, she'll do it well-rested. Kit must've seen it when she was asleep, she doesn't remember learning that. There's a reason she refuses to live in an apartment complex- too many thoughts, not enough sleep.

Speaking of her new friends, they were both worryingly quiet. It seems like the day was just destined to be a bad one. Figures.

Kit tries not to peek, she really does, but it's not her fault that everyone in the room had to think so goddamn _loud._

"Oh, Jesus," Kit breathes and lets out a string of Russian curses that leaves half the room with raised eyebrows. She's had a tough day. Bite her.

"Huh. Is anyone gonna explain that to me, or can curl up in a ball and hide in the cor-"

"Alexander Pierce. You know him?" Fury asks. Kit winces, knowing that he's asking her.

"Yeah, Nazi bastard," Kit says, and she doesn't like the way her mind screams danger when she looks at the rather innocent-looking photo.

"This man turned down the Nobel Peace Prize," Fury says, glaring at the black-and-white photo cradled in his good hand, He said, "Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility." See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

Kit bites back a comment about Fury and trust issues.

"We have to stop the launch," Nat speaks up from next to her.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore," Fury nudges open a briefcase, showing off three important-looking chips.

"What's that?" Sam asks, shifting so he can see past Kit, who lets out a long, low whistle at the sight. That's some fancy shit.

"Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized," Hill says, turning one of many laptops so that everybody can see. Kit's a bit lost- she'll just use Sam's reasoning.

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own." Fury says, and Kit's impressed with how in sync the two are- even their thoughts are in near tandem.

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get past them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left..."

"We're not salvaging anything. We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD," Steve says at the same time. Kit sits back, content to be background noise for the moment.

"SHIELD had nothing to do with it."

"You gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed, SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes," Steve's jaw ticks.

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed," Fury snaps.

"You didn't notice soon enough," Kit says. The attention shifts to her. Good. 

"Fury, they attacked you in broad daylight. They _arrested_ two of the Avengers, _publically_. There are people on those carriers who have no idea what they're helping accomplish, but _not enough_. That's the _point._ This isn't something you can root out. This is something you burn to the fucking ground," Kit says, and her voice shakes, oh does her voice shake. But there's a fire in her eyes and a steely set to her jaw.

The room goes quiet. Nobody ever realizes that Kit always knows more than's good for her.

"She's right," Hill speaks up, eventually, because she recognized that steely expression- she's worn it many times.

Fury closes his mouth and turns to look at Kit for a long moment, searching her eyes for answers. She lets him look. His gaze shifts over to Natasha, then Steve, then Sam.

"Don't look at me. I do what they do, just slower," Sam jokes, and Kit grins. 

* * *

_"We looked for you after. My folks wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery,"_

_"_ _I know, I'm sorry. I just...kind of wanted to be alone,"_

_"How was it?"_

_"It was okay. She's next to Dad."_

_"I was gonna ask..."_

_"I know what you're gonna say, Buck, I just..."_

_"We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It'll be fun. All you gotta do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash. Come on,"_

_"Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own,"_

_"The thing is, you don't have to. I'm with you to the end of the line, pal."_

* * *

"End of the line, huh?" Kit huffs. Steve blinks, glancing over at Kit, who leans back against the brick wall, not quite trusting her own ability to hold herself up, no matter how many times Fury told her they'd given her the good stuff. What with being shot twice in the abdomen and all.

"Sorry, I-" Steve stammers out, performing some kind of mental gymnastics about telepathy and manners.

"Don't be. I mean, if anyone gets a free pass for projecting thoughts like a neon sign, it's you," Kit says, and Steve looks away. Kit gets that headache again. She almost thinks that Winterboy's gonna pop up from under the bridge, but they're the only ones for miles. Damn, her head's killing her. Fucking telepathy.

Her breathe leaves her in a rush, and she presses one hand to her temple while the other clutches onto the stone wall as her knees give out in the face of a wave of agony. She'd let her barriers down, by accident, talking to Steve.

Someones calling her name, but she can hardly hear it through the roar of blood in her ears. She blinks once, twice, and by the third time she can just make out Steve's face. He looks concerned, but she can't really blame him.

"Kit?" Steve asks, again, pressing a hand to her forehead. She tries to swat him away and is half-surprised when it works. She swallows, thickly, and pushes herself up from when were was leaning against the stone wall.

"It's him. They're wiping him," Kit says, exchanging a look with Steve. Not good.

"I hoped- but. I don't know- I don't know why," Kit says, and her voice breaks. Stevie, Kit can tell, suddenly remembers that she's just a civilian. Hell, she's a _student_ , even with freaky-ass mind powers.

"HYDRA got him, we think," Steve's saying, and it's coming through muffled. Kit's head feels like someone's trying to split in two from the inside, but she's schooling her face so well that nobody else has a clue. Good, she doesn't wanna be sedated and stuck in a corner somewhere.

"When he fell off the train," Kit says, closing her eyes and swallowing back her rising nausea. Steve snaps his head towards her, and his thoughts are overwhelming. She can't make out a single coherent sentence from either of their minds.

"Why doesn't he remember me?" Stevie asks, and his voice cracks, and Kit has nearly the same epiphany that he'd just had. He was, what, twenty-something when he got iced? They're nearly the same age, and he's _scared_. He deserves answers, and Kit'll be damned if she's the one to take that from him.

"When he fell off the train- when I got shot, I was- unconscious. I tried- his mind's just _pain_ , Stevie, but- I was scared and trapped, and I can't _control this,_ not when I'm bleeding out. It was mostly just- just memories. He shouldn't of survived, but when he hit that cliff wall, all he lost was his fucking _arm_ -" Kit's voice breaks, and she squeezes her eyes shut, willing the tears and the images burning themselves to the back of her eyelids away.

"He's not Bucky Barnes, Stevie. They've burned that right out of him seventy years ago,"

"I don't know if I believe that," Steve says, with all the steely confidence of a madman with a goal. Kit almost laughs. She sees too much of herself in him.

"I know you don't. But you also think that he looked right at you and didn't even know who you were," Kit replies, meeting his eyes. Steve looks away. "You're wrong about that, Stevie,"

"How do you know that?" Steve asks, and it's not that he believes her, but he knows better than to _not_ look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Cause they call him the Fist of Hydra and they've been frying his neural pathways for the last seventy years and every single thought I picked up from him was in Russian _until_ you," Kit feels Sam approaching long before she can hear him. She doesn't stop talking anyway.

"You know, I did my seventh grade WWII report on him. Don't remember much, but I do know that if anyone still alive that can snap him out of it, it's you. Cause-" She cuts herself off. Steve's body shudders as he sucks in a breath.

"Cause I don't call you Stevie," Kit says.

* * *

Kit never really thought that, waking up that morning, that she'd be taking down a governmental agency in the afternoon. It was more binge Criminal Minds and finish a tub of ice cream, and _maybe_ go for a run if she was feeling productive type of day, but she's always prided herself on going with the flow.

"Attention, all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days, some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was, it's been taken over by HYDRA,"

There is something burning in her veins, and she vaguely remembers that this is exactly what she's been running from since she was thirteen. And she doesn't give a single shit, because she's done more right in the last week than she's done in the last two decades. She's okay with dying for it. She's known that she might die today since she walked into Sam Wilson's kitchen to see the Black Widow and Captain America. Really, she's been okay with dying since she was, well, fifteen, probably. Just been too stubborn.

"Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control,"

She's been building up barriers since she'd gained her powers- carefully constructed walls that turned her mind into a fortress, built up over the years so that maintaining them was instinctual, keeping herself from being overwhelmed, letting the only voice in her mind be her own.

Damn the barriers. She'd blow every single survival instinct she'd ever had to hell when she'd looked two Avengers in the eyes and didn't book a flight out of the country the same day.

Every single thought within three miles is running through her mind. Kit's never felt more clear. She's vaguely aware that her nose is bleeding. Let it. In the face of the last twenty hours, a nosebleed is so fucking insignificant that it doesn't even register with her.

"They shot Nick Fury and it won't end there. If you launch those Helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not,"

Kit's here to evacuate all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and incapacitate as much of HYDRA as possible. Hill had called it keeping the rats on the sinking ship, and Kit had grinned a smile that was all teeth. She didn't think of herself a violent person. But there's something far too gratifying about vengeance.

**Attention, all S.H.I.E.L.D agents. You don't need to know my name. But I know you.**

* * *

**You are good people. You deserve better than what will happen today, but HYDRA wants to massacre hundreds of millions of good people, and we cannot let that happen.**

Ralph Anderson had thought when he was first hired to work as a technician at a S.H.I.E.L.D nearly 30 years ago, that his life would be exciting. That he was being given the opportunity to make _history_.

**If you choose to run, you are no less of a person for it- get as far away from those Helicarries as possible. If you are hurt, there are triage stations being set up at the park on ground level.**

He was wrong, a reoccurring theme in his life thus far. He's nearly pushing 50, with nothing but one-and-a-half ex-wives and a job operating _hanger doors_ to speak for it. Not that he hates his job. Pays well enough. Except for when it gets infiltrated by Nazis.

**If you chose to stay and fight, be advised that it is highly likely you will not leave with your life. But if you so choose, don't let those Helicarries leave the ground. Blow those bastards sky high if you can, too.**

He's sitting there in a bit of stunned silence, wondering if they'd put single or married in his obituary when he dies today. He and Lydia hadn't finalized the papers, after all.

As he becomes aware of a scrambling of his colleges screaming at him to close the doors, he hopes they notice him lunge for the button. Well, he got shot eight times in the chest. Someone noticed.

**You will be remembered.**

* * *

**Because Nazi bastards?**

Brock Rumlow is feeling pretty hyped on adrenaline as he flees from the Triskelion's control room, all things considered. He'd just managed to launch the Insight Helicarriers despite that bitch Carter's meddling and was just about to escape amid the chaos. Success has never been more abundant.

None of these things explain why his muscles refused to respond. He was, essentially, locked in place, frozen in place in the doorway with his back turned to the room he so badly wanted to escape.

And judging by the sudden, deafening silence left in the wake of a shootout, he was not the only one. All he could do was hope that the people shooting at him were just as paralyzed as he was.

"Well, what do we have here?" Someone says behind him, and Sharon Carter _laughs_ at Rumlow before she shoots him three times in the back.

**Nazi bastards never win.**

* * *

"They're initiating launch," Hill says from beside her. Kit hears her clicking at something, but she can't quite tell what, with her eyes closed and her mind reaching in about a hundred different directions.

One of the Helicarriers lifts off. Kit can't stop it- she's just not strong enough to override that many people for long enough to make any significant difference at all. Failsafes have never been less appreciated. What she can do is slow it down- delaying reaction time, jamming techies hand-eye coordination, and most importantly, keeping her boys out of trouble. She's never worn a comms unit before, but she's gotta say, it really goes to your head.

"Hey, Birdbrain, I think you got spotted!" Kit calls into the mic and tells him to drop about half a second before an explosion fries the air he'd been a second before.

"Remind me to bring you along next time, save me the trouble of dodging!" Sam calls back, all while following her instructions of _left-right-left-down-goddamnit-birdbrain-the-other-down-UP!_

Nat's a bit harder- no comms unit for her. Plain ol' telepathy, which was a bit harder over the distance. There's a bit of interference, especially with her barriers down like this. She has her eyes closed and an IV feeding the pain meds directly into her veins and even then the headache is a _killer_.

**Not if it was your switch.**

**_Now, Nat. Get that pin off ASAP, too._ **

**Satellites in range at 3,000 feet.**

"Falcon, status?" Hill asks.

" _Down!_ " Kit cries out sharply, and she thanks the heavens when Sam gets the message and begins to drop like a rock.

"Engaging!" Sam calls back. Kit promptly tells him to dodge in about three different directions, and he manages it.

"Two below!" Kit tells him once he's close enough to the concrete. Sam wipes the floor with them.

"All right, Cap, I'm in,"

"Don't think you are, you've got incoming!" Kit says, and Sam swears. Kit swears louder when the fighter pilots manage to pin him.

"Gimme a sec," She tells Hill without opening her eyes, and crashes a military-grade fighter jet into the glass dome on the underbelly of the Helicarrier, opening a window for Sam to get the control center. Destroying government property has never been so satisfying.

"Eight minutes, Cap."

"Working on it," Steve calls back. Kit hasn't worried about him too much, he's good at this part of it. So is Nat, for that matter.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Councilman Rockwell asks the Black Widow.

"She's disabling security protocols and dumping all the secrets onto the Internet," Alexander Pierce, who has recently noticed a sudden issue involving fine motor control, bites out.

"Including HYDRA's," Natasha answers. She doesn't even bother looking up.

"And S.H.I.E.L.D.'s. If you do this, none of your past is gonna remain hidden," Pierce pleads, "Are you sure you're ready for the world to see you as you really are?"

For the briefest of seconds, her fingers freeze, before resuming typing. It's not her she's worried about.

"Are you?" Nat asks, icy cold. From the lack of chatter in the back of her mind, she assumes Kit's preoccupied. No matter. She was a good person, and she had done nothing but the right thing ever since Natasha had met her. Even when it got her shot, nearly killed, she was still running the comms with Maria Hill not a mile away. Natasha may be tired of hiding, but Kit deserves more than that.

Natasha pauses and sees every single piece of information both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA has ever had on Kiara Delgado laid out in front of her. And with a keystroke, Kit has never even been noticed by either organization.

* * *

"Alpha locked," Steve reports back, and Kit hisses out a quiet cheer into the mic."Falcon, where are you now?" Hill asks

"I'm in. Bravo locked, thank you, Kit!" Kit silently pumps her fist into the air, and Hill spares her a smile.

"Two down, one to go," Hill barely finishes her sentence before Kit is tightening a hand around her wrist.

"He's here?" Hill asks, and Kit notes mutely, screwing her eyes shut tighter. Scratch that previous headache statement, it feels like her skull got into a fight with someone wielding a battle-ax.

Kit grits her teeth and lets out a pained groan that's half a scream and bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. They'd prepared for this, and she sees Hill move to sedate her.

"No- I got this," Kit grits out sitting up straighter and swiping the blood off her lip. They don't have time for this.

"Can you get me through to the pilots?" Is the only response Kit gives to Hills look. Hill nods and hits a few keys before giving Kit the go-ahead.

"Hello, S.H.I.E.L.D. pilots. Congrats on staying, but I'm gonna have to ask you to run for your lives," Kit commands, feeling a wave of resistance flow back at her.  
"Ma'am, with all due respect-" A man Kit determines to be the lead pilot speaks up. They must recognize her as the voice from earlier.

"Do as I say. If you get in his way you will die and there are enough good men dying today. Now, _run,"_ Kit commands, and it's not one the pilots can refuse. Once she determines they're safely out of the way, she lets up, the sight of the Winter Soldier stalking onto the platform enough of an assurance that they'll stay out of the way.

"Hill, we've got company," Kit says, and opens her eyes quick enough to see Hill shoot both of their guests between the eyes.

"Nice shot," Kit says, mostly because it was.

"Thanks," Hill tells her, and to the comms, "Charlie Carrier's forty-five degrees off the port bow. Six minutes,"

"Hey, Sam, I'm gonna need a ride!"

"Roger! Let me know when you're ready,"

"I just did!" Kit registers what the chatter on the comms means and sighs to herself.

"You guys are idiots," Kit rolls her eyes, and Hill chuckles to herself.

"You know, you're a lot heavier than you look," Steve quips, and Kit curses loudly, and into the mike.

"Incoming, Rogers!" Kit screams, finding the nearest chair and collapsing into it, screwing her eyes shut. He gets hit anyway, one hand grasping at a guardrail that detaches and sends him flying.

"Shit!" Sam yelps, turning to run after him.

"Don't turn aro-" Kit yelps, but the Soldat's already grabbing Sam by the shoulder and tossing him backward. Kit's seeing double, and she's hyperventilating, but it's irrelevant. Sam starts shooting at the Soldier, and he's gonna rip off Sam's wing and oh god Kit knew this was gonna happen it's all too much and Sam's falling and the Soldier is-

"Sam! Bail!" Kit forces the words past the lump on her throat and sags back into the chair in relief when he makes it to the concrete without going splat.

"Steve?" Sam asks, and Kit knows he's safe too, but she checks and he's already hauling himself back off the edge of the Helicarrier.

"He's good- you good, Steve?"

"Yeah, I'm good! I'm still on the Helicarrier. Where are you?"

"I'm grounded, the suit's down. Sorry, Cap," Sam says. He feels guilty, and Kit's lip curls before she sends a wave of- well, not guilt- over to him.

"Worry 'bout the ground then, Sammy, Cap's got this one," Kit says, and then cries out as a wave of blinding pain whites out her vision- she'd been trying to reach that black space again. Fuck this. She's vaguely aware of Hill sling one arm beneath her own, and the nosebleed returning twice as hard as before, but it just doesn't register.

"Hey, Stevie?" Kit asks, all ragged breathing and there's blood in her mouth but the only way she's moving is Hill all but dragging her.

"Yeah?" Steve asks, but he knows what's coming- he glances off and sees the flash of a gunmetal arm disappearing from sight.

"He's meetin' you halfway," Kit mumbles and goes half-limp in Hill's arms- she's being set onto the floor. Fair enough. The agony-white of her vision fades to black, and she's back in the Soldier's mind, for the second time that day. Damn.

* * *

Hill's yelling at her, and Sam's yelling at her, and Nat's probably also yelling at her, and maybe her dad's come back from the dead to yell at her too because that's how her day's going, but she doesn't fucking _care_ , and her mind's a tangle of her thoughts and _you're-my-mission-you're-my-mission-you're-my-mission_ and _Bucky-Bucky-_ _Bucky-Bucky-_ _Bucky_ and Kit thinks she might puke but a super soldier or not he'd been shot, what, three, four times, and Kit knows it's not rational to go on her own but she _has to_.

She knows that's not the only reason why. She knows there's a little page of folded-up notebook paper that proves that, sometimes, her mind makes decisions without her. And she cannot, for the life of her, give a single _shit_.

Because she saw it happen. Because she felt him get shot and a super-soldier with a metric fuckton of emotional trauma and just as many entry wounds isn't meant to be combined with the bottom of the Potomac.

She doesn't know what she thinks is gonna happen- is Kit, a civilian barista with one less hole in her than Steve, gonna haul Cap out? It's ridiculous. Kit could laugh at herself.

She will. If she has to fish Stevie out of the river by her damn self she will.

The pavement's a blur underneath her feet, and a thought half-passes through her mind about how shitty it would be if her stitches tear.

Her barriers, however, remain firmly in place. There are very few things worse than passing out at that exact moment, and she can't risk it.

Maybe that's why, even as she follows the faint pulse of Cap's mind ( _buckybuckybuckybucky_ ), she doesn't notice him. Maybe it's because that damned headache's faded to background noise. Maybe it's none of the above.

No matter what the reason was- Kit blames herself, because who wouldn't have a main character complex after that- when Kit finds Steve Rogers, he's beaten and bloody and shot three-four times, and he's been hauled out of the river. And he's laying at the feet of-

She doesn't know what to call him.

Maybe she didn't notice him because this is the man she got _Stevie-not-Steve_ from- not those holes in her chest. He's scared and hurting and incredibly dangerous, nonetheless. 

She's at a loss. There's no urgency, no end-all-be-all deadline approaching at a hundred miles an hour. It's quiet, for a moment, save for the heaving of Kit's chest and the sirens in the distance. Kit's eyes flicker down to Steve (whose breathing, thank god, no mouth-to-mouth necessary), and back up to ~~The Winter Soldier~~ ~~Bucky~~ the man standing above him. Presumably, the one who'd-

"You pulled him from the river?" Kit asks, because what the hell else is there to say?

He looks at her for a long while, long enough for Kit to see the way every muscle in his body is tense, the limp, the awkward angle of his arm- clutched to his chest, badly broken. He nods.

"Alright," Kit murmurs, "Alright," She thinks something bitter about how she's gonna regret this. She doesn't care much, she realizes, as she slowly lowers one hand into her pocket, extending the other and upturning her palm.

There's a wild look in the Inbetween-Man's eyes. She fishes out what she's looking for, a folded piece of S.H.I.E.L.D. stationary, and pulls her hand back out, ignoring the gun she still has in there, fully loaded.

"You're gonna need to treat that," Kit says, gesturing at his arm, his eyes jerk to follow her movements like he's a microsecond from bolting. "Do you know how to set the bone?"

The nod comes quicker this time, if more violent. Baby steps.

"That's good. This," she holds out the slip of paper to him, "Has my address on it. It also has my security code, and the phone numbers you can use to reach me, Steve," a gesture to the sopping wet (and unconscious) Cap, "Sam Wilson, the one with the wings, and Nat, Natasha, the redhead,"

He makes no move to take it.

"Look, I know you want to turn and run as far away as possible right now. I get it. But you need medical attention, pretty immediate medical attention," Kit doesn't know what the hell kind of decisions she's made over the past twenty-four hours to lead her here, "And I'm willing to bet you're not going to a hospital. My house is in a neighborhood outside of the city- there are no security cameras on my street. I won't be home for at least three days, dealing with all of this,"

Kit sees a sort of understanding flare behind the Inbetween-Man's eyes, and she calls that progress.

"There's a decent stockpile of medical supplies under the bathroom counter on the first floor. Set that arm for me," Kit says, and hold the slip of paper out as far as she can. She barely feels it leave her hands before she blinks and is left alone at the riverside with a very injured, very wet, and incredibly unconscious Captain America.

"Well, shit."


	3. Kit Delgado Deals- Kinda.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I won't call anyone. Promise," She says, turning her back to him and pulling a box on instant mac-n-cheese out of the cabinet. Mother Russia almost has a heart attack at how she just trusts him. 
> 
> What is she, stupid?

When Kit floats back into the grey area between sleep and awareness, she's not in her own mind. It's not as disorienting as she'd thought it would be- but she has to give Steve Rogers and his remarkably resilient mind the credit for that one.

She'd expected him to return to the world of the living with- well, a lot more screaming, that's for one. It's the reason why, even when Sam insisted that she _needed_ sleep, she stubbornly pulled her chair a bit closer to the bed and shoved one hand to the base of Stevie's neck. It was a rather uncomfortable position, but she'd had a long few days.

Her eyes- _Steve's_ eyes- open slowly, and ~~she's~~ he's confused for a moment. There are about three million questions bouncing around the brain Kit's currently residing in, but she can only decipher about half of them before ~~she~~ Steve looks down only to discover Kit propped against the sideboards of the hospital bed, and she's startled back into her body. Steve closes his eyes, and Kit opens hers.

"On your left," Steve murmurs, and Kit snorts loudly at the reflexive wave of amused annoyance the Sam gives off.

"You know," Kit huffs, her vision spinning from jumping back into her own body as she leans back into her own seat with a pained groan, "Sam was right- how big _was_ your breakfast, exactly?"

She was joking, but not completely. She'd managed to drag him all the way to the nearest street (a feat on its own), called Sam for a ride, and she doesn't remember a thing past that. According to Sam, he'd pulled up to pick them up and found her passed out on top of the Captain. She'd woken up a day later, and Sam immediately let her know that she was, in fact, _never_ going to live it down.

Steve laughs, a real laugh, loud and hearty and it does not agree with his broken ribs. He winces, and Kit cringes empathetically. Yikes.

And then the realization hits, and the laughter drops right off his face.

"You pulled me out of the river?" He asks, and Kit can't bring herself to be offended, no matter how determined she had been, she was no Olympic athlete. The thought of her dragging someone out of the bottom of the Potomac was laughable.

"Yeah- about that," Kit says, and she was almost wishing that she'd faked being asleep. Not a conversation she's looking forward to.

* * *

The Asset was not designed to make _choices_.

It explains the splitting pain behind the right eye. Less than a mile from the riverbank, the Asset collapses behind a dumpster. The woman does not come for him. He suspects that was another choice. He would thank her for it, if he knew how.

He still has the slip of paper clutched gingerly in the left hand. The Asset leaves behind smudges where the fingers make contact, but only two. He should not have taken it. He is afraid to adjust the hold like he will burn the slip to ash if one single other part of the body touches it.

It would not matter, at the moment, where the Asset is decidedly out of commission, slumped in the fork between a derelict brick wall and an equally filthy dumpster, pulse pounding in head-splitting beats. It is not the best position in the world.

It is not the worst, either. Better this than the riverbank ( _stupid, Rogers, anyone could get at you_ ). Better this than the chair.

He does not know why that last thought comes, unbidden. It does not fit with the mission imperative. The Handler had commanded that he return to the bank after the mission was complete.

The mission has failed. Obviously.

He could not go back. He had failed. The mission had failed.

If he went back, they would finish the mission. They would kill Steven Grant Rogers, US Army Captain. They would make him do it.

Better bleeding out behind a derelict dumpster than that.

He does not know why it is completely unacceptable for Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America, to be killed. Or otherwise injured- further injured. A mission he does not remember receiving blares the unacceptability into his mind like a foghorn. The Asset has less than a days worth of memories, half of which are the mission briefing, the other half the mission- it is not uncommon to not remember. The Asset is unused to not remembering the mission directives _while on the mission_.

It is not very useful. He is in no position to make remarks, he never has been, but he feels the urge to spit curses at his handlers rise in his chest, with a strength to rival the urge to return to the bank.

He denies both. Spitting curses would not be any help with the migraine, and the mission decrees that he cannot put Steven Grant Rogers in harm's way. In _his_ way.

The Asset, in a remarkable moment of clarity, wonders who the hell was giving him such shitty orders. Who the hell assigns the same Asset to protect and kill the same man? Fuckin' ridiculous.

The migraine fades, just a bit. Enough for him to assess the damage that he's sustained.

Dislocated right shoulder. Broken right forearm- the woman was right, he will have to set it, if he wishes to remain useful. At least two broken ribs, a gash on his right thigh, and the gunmetal arm is wet as hell. 

The woman seems to provide resources to allow him to complete his mission. He will need to tend to himself before he can complete the mission- protect Rogers. The fucking idiot, _letting_ himself get shot.

The last thought rattles around in his skull for a moment without finding purchase. The faint crinkling of paper is the only reason he realizes he's clenched his fist- the right one remains limp, draped across his chest. 

Right. Tend to his injuries. The Asset unclenches his fist, and squints his eyes at the list of numbers scrawled there, until he finds an address.

* * *

She's never suffered like this before.

They spoke of being made anew, but this is not being erased- this is being erased piece by piece, ripped to shreds and burned away.

There is no making here, there is only destruction and ice in her veins and pain where her arm should be. 

She's scared. She wants Steve.

The name, like the rest of her, is blasted away in the waves of agony that pull her under and rend her apart.

She wishes they would just kill her.

* * *

She's never felt so utterly destroyed before.

A hollow scream dies in her throat as loss plunges a hand into her chest and rips her apart, and the only reason she can tell the pain in her chest is purely mental is she can feel the deafening roar of blood pumping through her veins, keeping her alive.

The metal bites into her palms hard enough to draw blood, dripping into the canyon below before it freezes.

She's alone. She wants Bucky- but, well.

His body is most likely in pieces, scattered on the snow-covered rocks. She feels like she's dying.

She wishes she were selfish enough to follow him. 

* * *

She's never failed so spectacularly before.

What was the point, what was the fucking _point!_ All that training, all that tech and importance and skill and he could do nothing but fucking _watch_. Watch as the only other person in the world who she could rely on falls to earth like a meteor streaking across the sky.

Watch as she reaches the ground and can do nothing but hold his still-warm body.

She's hysterical. She just wants Riley, but _here he is, Sam Wilson, dead at your feet._

Someone's trying to get her attention over the comms. She doesn't have enough energy to rip it out.

It should've been him.

* * *

She's never felt less human.

They were taking her apart and putting her together again- she didn't _want this_. She'd never wanted this, she wants more than this, she wants to run, she wants and she wants and she _wants_.

They'd take that from her too if they could. 

She's trapped and she's suffocating and they're taking from her and she is so used to being taken from and she still cannot _stand it_.

Not one second longer, not one breath more. 

She wants to be free.

She's strapped down either way, hyperventilating and broken and biting back screams.

She wills her heart to stop beating.

* * *

She's being unmade.

* * *

It hurts.

* * *

She can feel the shape of the gun in her hand. 

There is a man on the other end of it.

She pulls the trigger.

* * *

Kit wakes up screaming.

She doesn't know where she is for several moments, clutching onto the shirt of a man she doesn't recognize and howling until her lungs are empty, and she descends into full-body sobs. The man she's clinging to is speaking in low, soothing tones and has her pressed to his chest with enough force that, despite her thrashing, she cannot hurt anyone.

That includes herself. She tastes blood, bitter copper and pain. Kit- her sense of identity has returned, it seems, after only a couple minutes, follows the man's breathing pattern as best she can. The actions are familiar, as is the man. _Sam_ , her brain supplies. Thanks, brain. 

After what can't be more than five minutes (new record), she's stopped crying, and she notices the room's other occupants. Steve is standing on the near side of the doorway, concern creasing his brow as he watches her. Natasha is opposite him, eyes tracking Kit's every movement like a hawk. The concern is there all the same because Kit can _feel_ it.

"ты хорош?" Natasha asks. Kit sighs, digs the palms of her hands into her eyeballs till she sees stars, and follows Sam into a standing position.

"вы люди худшие," Kit grumbles, dragging her jello-boned body into the kitchen to make herself some shitty coffee, because she'd run out of the good stuff at Sam's house on the first day.

"что? это было впечатляюще!" Nat laughs, holding up her hands in mock surrender. She thanks God for the redhead, not for the first time. She'll make her a cup, just for that.

Her hands are shaking a bit too much to be reasonably considering making coffee, but coffee is what Kit does. She knows coffee, she's good at it.

Close interpersonal relationships? Not so much. Thankfully, everybody else is the room is well-equipped in noticing and abiding her deflecting.

"Well. To be fair, you can't be the only people in the house with some interesting sleeping habits," Kit says, her laugh genuine, "And besides, I recall Mr. Wilson promising some kickass pancakes,"

"Oh, he did, did he?" 

"Oh yeah, I seem to recall the time and place being two years back and that-"

"Okay! Okay, do not mention that, I don't need you marring my reputation with my super-cool new friends, Kit-Kat,"

"But I'm so _good_ at marring your reputation, Uncle Sam!"

"Look, do you want the Wilson pancake special or not?"

"Oh, I want, and with chocolate chips, birdbrain, lots of chocolate chips,"

"This isn't a goddamn B&B- when are you leeches gonna start paying rent!" 

"Hey! I thought Wilson's Halfway House for Wayward Heroes was rent-free!" Kit laughs, dropping her jaw in faux-shock. A cup's ready, but she hands it to Nat, first.

"Hey! That's offensive! Cap, defend my honor!"

"Yeah, Steve, let's hear what the good Captain has to say on the matter,"

"Well, the good Captain is a homeless fugitive, so, I vote Sam Wilson's house be available to the public," 

"I second that!" Natasha calls out from the corner of the kitchen, where she's adding vodka to her mug.

"I- oppose! Objection!" Sam calls out, looking a bit attacked.

"On what grounds?" Kit asks, hiding her grin in her own coffee mug- a well-worn thing she keeps at Sam's house. It reads _Worlds Worst Little Sister_ , and he got it a few years back for her after she'd sent his girlfriend at the time about two hundred baby photos. Unprompted.

"On- you have a house!" 

"I'm a squatter," Kit says, with a straight face and a kind tone that makes it so much more believable. Steve fails to conceal his laugh with a cough, then a wince. Kit winces sympathetically. Torso-hole buddies.

"Yeah, in my goddamn house, sure you are," Sam grumbles, turning the stove on nonetheless.

"Oh, relax, buddy, I'm planning on returning to home base today," Kit grumbles back with a smile, pulling out the ingredients for the Wilson special while Sam sets up the stove. It's a familiar, comforting action- she's been making pancakes with him for years. 

"Oh, is that so?" Sam asks, pulling the chocolate chips out of the cupboard.

"Yeah, I just ran out of the back-up meds," Kit hums back. The pair of them fall into a companionable silence while Steve and Nat discuss the newspaper from where they've settled at the kitchen table- Sam's rules about keeping the Russian assassin and 1940's cook out of his kitchen are clear. Especially after Steve told them a story about how Natasha likes to add old Russian poisons to her cooking and then Nat retaliated with a story about how all Steve can do is boil things- he'd argued that it was a product of his time, and she'd told him then he should at least be able to boil said things properly.

Kit and Nat get served first, as they both requested chocolate chips. Kit sits down with a wince and promptly unloads half a bottle of syrup over the top of her stack. Steve shoots her a dirty look, and she kicks at his shins under the table. It all feels so very _domestic_.

"Alright, Baby Blues, how you want 'em? We've got plain, a reasonable amount of chocolate chips, _Kit's_ amount of chocolate chips, and, uh, blueberry," Sam asks, because Stevie always gets his own serving, because Steve eats like a staved teenage boy on appetite enhancers. 

"Plain, please," Steve asks politely. Kit gasps louder than should be physically possible.

"Blasphemy! Rogers, we've gotta send you back to the hospital, they clearly missed some brain damage, I don-"

"Hey, I'm not the one that drenches everything in an ungodly amount of syrup-"

"Who're you calling ungodly!" 

"You're ruining some perfectly good pancakes!" 

"Children," Nat says in a tone so scolding that Kit shuts her mouth on pure instinct. Steve, it seems, does the same, before she plasters a shit-eating grin on her face and unloads the _other_ half of her syrup bottle atop of Steve's stack of plain atrocities.

He damn near has an aneurysm, and they're both smiling a bit too much for it to be serious. Kit, for the first time in a very long time, dreads returning to an empty house.

* * *

Or, well, not so empty. There's a rather filthy Russian man sat in her kitchen.

Kit raises her eyebrows but remains otherwise calm, and she can tell it confuses Tall Dark and Greasy. He's clearly used to people being either surprised and/or terrified at seeing him seated in their homes. Most people can't feel him six blocks off, though. 

"I'll admit, I expected you to be long gone by the time I came back," Kit says, closing the front door behind her. Another action that surprises Leather Jumpsuit (okay, so the names not very nice- what else is she supposed to call him?), clearly.

"You have anywhere else to go?" Kit asks, gently, hanging her jacket and over-stuffed backpack by the door. She approaches the kitchen, but makes no sudden moves and keeps her hands in front of her with her palms raised. Nobody wants to spook the super-assassin.

Still no words, but Kit watches cogs whir in his eyes for a moment before he nods. Okay, he was here for a reason- _mission assist_ \- because he could've made it out of the country three times in the time it took Kit to come home. She'd made sure of it.

"Okay," Kit says, and pulls her phone out, slowly, making it clear that it was a phone and not a, well, weapon. The effort to placate Raccoon Eyes is unsuccessful, becuase he tenses immediately after the phone leaves her pocket. He's staring at her hand like she _is_ holding a gun, and Kit thinks for a second (longer than usual) and decides calm assassin and no phone is better than freaked-out assassin and busted phone (and body).

She makes eye contact, sets the phone on the counter, and moves out of reach. The relief would not be palpable to anyone else (he remains tense, narrowed eyes tracking her every move). It is palpable to Kit, in the way the panicked flurry of his thoughts slows down. For a guy that beat-up, he certainly isn't lacking in the coherence department.

"I won't call anyone. Promise," She says, turning her back to him and pulling a box on instant mac-n-cheese out of the cabinet. Mother Russia almost has a heart attack at how she just _trusts_ him. 

**What is she, stupid?**

Kit barks out a laugh at that, and the Walking L'Oréal Commercial raises his eyebrows. Well, now the Soviet Can Crusher thinks you're stupid, Kit. Nice job.

"I'm not stupid," Kit says, smiling good-naturedly as she pulls a pot- he doesn't like that, heavy things in her hands. Understable- out from below the stove and begin to fill it up with water. This time, he is so very surprised he reacts _physically_. Raised eyebrows and a stare deadpan enough to curdle milk.

**Then why?**

"Well, I can be pretty dumb sometimes, but this isn't one of those times," Kit says, putting the pot on the stove, "I trust you,"

Now _that_ was a wave of emotion- Kit's hand slips for a moment, but she catches herself before frying the palm of her hand on the stove. There was no way in hell she was going back to the hospital, not after the whole debacle. Not that she was a fan of hospitals before, per se.

"Why?" He asks the first thing he's ever said to her. Kit grins, despite herself, despite both the Murder Model and an imaginary Sam Wilson calling her a reckless idiot in the backseat of her brain. Progress, motherfuckers.

"You saved Steve's life," Kit says, like its simple, like it's _easy._ "You could have left him at the bottom of the river. You were _supposed_ to. You didn't," Kit says, and the Soldier stares at her, naked surprise filling his eyes. They're pretty eyes, too.

It's quiet for a few beats as they size each other up- although in slightly different ways. Kit does a precursory check for injuries, out of habit and the fact that he looks filthy (she's showing him how to use a shower if it kills her), and then just wonders how the hell you're supposed to take something with that many buckles off. Can-Crusher's thoughts are a calculating stream of analysis that brings him to the conclusion that Kit could be a threat if she chose to. Also, she's not choosing to.

"You want some mac-n-cheese?" 

"Yes," The man says almost immediately, before feeling surprise-fear-confusion at his own answer. Answering _want_ questions was not allowed, yet-

"Well, that's good. Mac-n-cheese is a very good thing, I'll have you know," Kit says, her words a stream of chatter more than anything else. She can tell the man's listening, though. He cocks his head ever so slightly.

The Fist of HYDRA is a surprisingly polite lunch guest. Well, if you consider sitting quietly and eating what's offered after only sniffing it suspiciously once polite (Kit does, easily). He has America's Golden Boy beat by leaps and bounds, considering Steve pulled the injured card on Kit nearly every time she was cooking, despite the fact that they'd argued over who was injured worse (Sure, we tie in the shooting department, but I got _stabbed_ and _drownded_ ), the ass.

His long-lost bestie was much easier to cook for. Even if he was half-sure she was poisoning him, he ate three bowls to Kit's one and cleared his place the same way Kit cleared hers.

She's about to ask the man to, please god, take a shower, when her doorbell rings. Kit exclaims happily and jumps out of her seat, but rears back at the sound of a gun cocking.

"Hey," Kit says, and she freezes halfway between the door and the assassin leveling a gun at it. _Shit_.

"Hey, you gotta put the gun down," Kit says, placating and just a bit panicked, "Hey, look at me,"

He does not look at her. Fucking shit.

"Kitty, dear, it's Ms. Hanscom!" The gun snaps towards the door- _shit_.

"That is my neighbor. Her name is Barbra Hanscom. She's sixty-one and has three cats and said she'd be over to check-in. She has a fake hip and the only exercise she gets is renting strippers, she is not. A. Threat,"

She's not sure what gets him to lower the gun, but she is fairly certain it was the stripper joke and not her negotiation skills- the only future she has in hostage negotiation is as the hostage. He doesn't laugh, she doesn't even get a _smile_ , but the naked surprise is back in his eyes, accompanied by a little crinkle in the corner.

She reaches out and places her hands over his on the gun (yikes), and then turns the safety off (double yikes), but doesn't make him put it away (less yikes).

"One sec, Barbs!" Kit calls out, her cheery tone at odds with the way she faces off with the assassin in her kitchen. One hand still wrapped around his, tilting the gun at the floor, she stares at him for a long moment. And another- she's asking something from him, and she can tell he's confused, but the message of _don't shoot the neighbor_ isn't very easy to miss.

He doesn't nod. He also doesn't move from where she'd stopped him in the kitchen, handgun pointed at the tile floor.

Kit exchanges some small talk with Ms. Hanscom, but she spends the whole conversation blocking the other woman's view into her kitchen while simultaneously trying to convince her nothing was amiss. It was, in short, an ordeal. An ordeal she had no business getting through as well as she did, but, hey, wasn't the first time she hid a guy in her room.

College.

Kit closes, locks, and double-locks the door before she heaves a rather dramatic sigh of relief.

"Close one, huh?" She asks, raising her eyebrows with a grin that fades at the lack of reaction. Tough crowd.

They stand there for a moment- Kit pulling away from the closed door, the man staring at her and not moving an inch from where she'd left him, not relaxing his grip on the gun.

"Thank you," Kit says, but she's not sure he gets it. She doesn't get it either, but she has a very good basis of "being under duress" to excuse her actions. She's planning on telling Sam as such when he absolutely chewed her out over the phone, which- 

Is missing. Her phone is not where she'd left it, and that means that Scowl Lines almost certainly had it. Not great.

"My phone?" She asks, and it's more probing for information than anything else. She'd feel guilty, but Mr. 1940's had just stolen her phone.

How had he even done that? 

He doesn't respond, but the way he shakes his head _no_ is answer enough. Dudes pretty much non-verbal, but that doesn't prevent him from communicating the no-outside-contact thing.

Well. Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Are you good?
> 
> 2\. You people are the worst.
> 
> 3\. What? It was impressive!


	4. Kit Delgado & the Worlds Politest Stalker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kit trusts Steve enough to do as he's told.
> 
> He doesn't, of course, becuase Steve has a habit of finding the worst possible outcome of any situation she comes across. If the dog analogy is sticking, Steve is an over-enthusiastic Golden Retriever, loyal and optimistic and always running after things he shouldn't be.

It was, considering the circumstances, a quiet night. Oh, how Kit dreads using the Q-Word, but it applies, this time. She'd asked Winter Boy when the last time he'd slept, and promptly forced him into the guest bedroom, despite his lack of answer. There was no guarantee he would sleep because the decision to stay awake was a _choice,_ becuase Kit is destined to be surrounded by reckless idiots. But he thought quieter, at least.

Kit, too, didn't sleep much. That was a choice, too, because Raccoon Eyes had puked his guts out in the only bathroom about half an hour after she'd given him a whole pot of mac-n-cheese. Because he had _not eaten in three days_ , apparently. And while he knew how to eat (her life was so fucking weird), after a quick peek, it was clear that regular, normal, _eating,_ was not how HYDRA sated his super-soldier metabolism.

Nazi bastards.

She'd passed out sometime in the AM, after giving up and downing her veritable cocktail of meds, Soviet Pyscho be damned. If she gets killed in the middle of the night, at least she'd go out in a case worthy of crime shows everywhere. If she was destined for anything, it was going out under mysterious circumstances.

When she remembers (re-remembers?) the international fugitive (probably) that she's hiding in her home, she excuses herself because, from the first time she met/got shot by Too Much Eyeliner, shes been able to feel him from miles away. Also, Kit can and will swear up and down that she was not thinking rationally at the time. Any and all weird actions taken in recent weeks and weeks following were due to extreme mental duress. Weird like taking down a government-industry in two days, getting shot twice, being friends with 2/6ths of the Avengers and counting (Tony Goddamn Stark was begging Steve for her number).

Weird like inviting America's Most Wanted (probably- his face wasn't coming up on the news) into her home and then letting him escape. Grease Master 2000 going missing comes in at number two on Reasons Why Kit Hates Her Life Today Even More Than Most Days.

Tied for third place is the extensive home damage that Kit has no idea how she slept through, which, listed, includes five holes in the wall, three broken cabinets, two doors placed gingerly on the floor after being torn off of their hinges, two broken mirrors, and, strangely enough, a shattered jug of milk on the floor- which, judging by the amount of spilled milk, he'd drank about half of. But clocking in at number one on the list of Things Kit Might Just Kill The Man For, number goodman one, he'd _shattered her phone_. Like, sad-little-ball-of-crumpled-metal shattered. As in, he'd not only ripped the wires out of the landline she hadn't paid for in months, he _broke her phone_. Yes, it is rather unreasonable to be more upset about a Super-Assassin breaking her phone than the same man _shooting her_ , but sue her. Candy Crush is the only reason she hasn't snapped by now.

Also, it means she's gonna have to tell her new besties that she had the Worlds Worst Amnesiac over for a sleepover and didn't tell them. And let him escape.

"Oh, fuck me right in the-" Kit bites out at the sight of the busted lock on her back door, trailing off into a strangled scream as she bashes her head into the wall. And that's meant literally- she has a habit of acquainting her forehead with the nearest surface when faced with stressful situations. Before she stumbled across the medication that helps boot other people from her brain, she'd actually put her head through a few unfortunate sections of drywall. This seems an occasion worthy of such drywall abuse.

* * *

The scene in Kit's kitchen is a rather sad one. Steve's biting his lip, and Kit can't tell if he looks sad or pissed off, her search not aided by the cocktail of emotions that makes up his upstairs. Eugh. She's also pointedly ignoring Sam's disappointed look, and the loud sound of Natasha sharpening her knives, instead choosing to rummage around the fridge for- anything, really. Half of it had already spoiled from the week she spent away, the other half either left suspiciously half-opened or sporting finger grooves consistent with a left hand. She's really gonna have to have a talk with Winter Boy about his grip strength.

"So," Kit says, raising her eyebrows in a weak attempt at humor, "Whose paying for the groceries and home repair? Because I'm gonna be honest, it's not me,"

This is, coincidentally, not what leads to Tony Stark sitting on her kitchen counter- he was already on his way, actually. But either way, there's a billionaire taking apart her toaster, and she can't quite bring herself to be offended.

"Oh, come on, kid, really? Look at this, it's older than you, honestly," Tony says, pulling a face as he places toaster guts on the counter beside him. 

"Come on, old man, that's a sentimental toaster," Kit teases, digging through the bags of groceries Tony had, somehow, already had delivered. She's a bit afraid it won't all fit in the fridge, but she's not about to complain. Her suspicious-looking bread was getting tossed either way, to be honest. She draws the line at the visible mold.

"Sentimental?" He asks, and it'd be easy to mistake it for teasing if she couldn't sense the spike of anxiety that meets her words- she always keeps a close eye on new people in her home. Out of the people-pleasing she'd inherited from her mother and the paranoia she'd gotten from her father, in equal measures.

"Oh, Kit, come on-" Sam complains from the kitchen, already knowing what comes next.

"Oh, yeah. _Sentimental_ ," Kit sing-songs, grinning widely at the resigned expression on Sam's face, "No, not really, the thing burns my toast more than it doesn't. Go crazy. But! So, Sam Wilson- you know Sam Wilson, don't you? Good, so-"

Sam groans, loudly.

"So, picture this, Sam Wilson, a toaster, and a moderately large fire in the sink, you picturing this?" Kit half-yells over the subject of the story. Tony nods, enraptured, and Steve's chucking quietly over her shoulder. Nat's shoulders relax slightly, and if she was projecting a bit, who can blame her?

"Kit, Kitty, Kit-Kat, stop while you're ahead," Sam calls out from the kitchen table,

"Shut it, Sammy, you're the only one that didn't get shot this week," Kit snips back, and the two fall into a familiar argument. She'd worry about annoying her guests, but there's a camaraderie in the air, and even the dark-eyed soldiers who glance at the exits a bit too much that make up all of her guests are relaxing, and, okay, she's _so_ cheating, but she's allowed a cheat day/week/month. If she never shuts her proverbial third eye she cannot be faulted for it, and she will argue it in court.

Steve and Sam are having another conversation centered around their soldiering careers in the kitchen over Kit's last decent beers, while Natasha has somehow found _more_ vodka that she shares with Tony, and Kit is surprised with just how happy she is. She's teasing Tony (Tony goddamn Stark- she's teasing Tony goddamn Stark, her professor was going to keel over and die if she ever found out) about a New York Fashion Week scandal that he's delighted to learn Kit had never heard about. She's never kept up with the headlines, either too determined to never breathe in a magazine's direction while in the midst of a tom-boy phase or too busy with school and work and more school and more work. He's enthralled with the anonymity he finds and loses wholly with her, an observation that making has Kit feeling a bit like her old therapist.

Kit's enthralled by it all, wholly taken with the glamour of his adolescence and the way that she's not hiding from these people. Nat's thinking impish things in her direction, and Tony apologizes in an entirely too amused fashion when he notices the face she pulls at a barrage of graphic images. And maybe this is why she doesn't flip when she feels _him_ , lurking in the treeline and looking in. Kit remembers, faintly, being taught the best way to catch a stray dog is to direct your focus elsewhere. Winter Boy isn't a dog, and the analogy feels vaguely insulting, but Kit turns back to her living room, bright and alive and she tells Steve that there's a stray in the treeline and she trusts him enough to do as he's told.

He doesn't, of course, becuase Steve has a habit of finding the worst possible outcome of any situation she comes across. If the dog analogy is sticking, Steve is an over-enthusiastic Golden Retriever, loyal and optimistic and always running after things he shouldn't.

"What, so the Manchurian Candidate is _stalking_ you?"

"Tony no, it's not-" Steve begins to protest, and is again pinned under the wrathful glares of a billionaire, an assassin, Sam Wilson, and a telepath. He shuts his mouth.

"Okay, that was funny actually, and _yes,_ which is why _you_ are uninvited from my home! Goodbye, adios, get out," Kit huffs as she herds her pack of superheroes out through the back door and towards the front. Season Man had, predictably, been long gone before Steve even got within shouting distance of his perch, and oh, was there shouting. It was a telling off worthy of Kit's own Mama.

"Kit, please, he could still be out there!" Steve's still pleading even as he's dragged toward the exit. 

"Okay, Blondie, please. Let Sam tell you why a), no he isn't, and b), why chasing him is like, the worst idea in the history of ideas. This-" Kit says, stopping in the kitchen to push a bag of leftovers into Tony's hands, "Here, Toño, take some. No, seriously, you just did all my grocery shopping for like, a year, take it. Tasha, come back soon, I'm actually begging, it reeks of testosterone here. Please. Steve, seriously, leave, me and Metal Man gotta have some one-on-one stalker-stalkee time. Yes, I will let you know if he comes back- _if,_ Steve, _if_ you promise to not chase after him. Like, seriously, Sam, strap him down, I don't care how beefy he is,"

Tony's holding the door, and Kit shoots him a smile as she shoves her superhero friends into the backseat of a chauffeured car. Out of pity, mostly, because she is _totally_ dumping the fallout onto him, and he smiles back in a way that screams "I'll get you for this". She raises her eyebrows in challenge, and all but sprints back into the safety of her home becuase she really does not want to deal with a billionaire looking for vengeance, and she has leftovers that need eating.

* * *

Kit wakes, three days later, to sun streaming through her half-closed blinds and is immediately pissed off. Understandably- she _always_ closes the blinds for this exact reason. And Natasha's mood when she visited last night was no help- she's never hated the government quite so much before. 

"Oh, fuck off," Kit tells the sun. The sun does not fuck off. The sun stays exactly where it is, shining into her eyes like an asshole. It takes her another thirty seconds of grumbling for her to realize that she had, in fact, closed the blinds last night.

And there's someone in her house. Three guesses as to who the man is that's sitting in her kitchen staring at the cabinets blankly. 

"Uh," Kit says, standing in the entrance to her own kitchen, becuase she is not very good at the whole thinking-things-through thing. 

Winter Boy looks at her. As opposed to earlier, when he'd been staring at the wall. Dios Mio, she doesn't deserve this. The downsides of telepathically helping out the most dangerous assassin in town, folks.

But Steve's Very Platonic Soulmate is staring at her expectantly. He's expecting- orders. He thinks she's his handler. Well. At least she's experienced with war veterans. 

"You got blood on my floor," Kit says. To be fair, she didn't _mean_ to. She just followed the massive blood train leading from her bedroom to the bleeding man and was a bitch caught off guard. Huh.

It's silent long enough for Kit to regret her words.

"Yes," the man says, and Kit's again, struck by how very odd his voice sounds. The accent is hard to place- Eastern European, American, something else, disguised by the gravel of a voice left unused.

"Why- why, uh, did you bleed on my floor?" Kit asks. She winces at how stupid it sounds, and picks up a clear note of incredulity coming from Judgy Trash Panda, which she takes offense to. It's not her fault she's the worst handler he's ever had, in terms of handling. She didn't even apply for the job.

"Yeah okay, stupid question- whatever, more stupid questions coming up. Why are you bleeding?" Kit asks, slowly approaching the bloodied kitchen table and the bleeding man with all the caution of somebody approaching a bomb rigged to blow. She really wishes that Hot Hobo would outgrow his fear of her friends- Sam's much better at the calm comferting than her.

He can answer that one, it seems, even though it takes a few moments of deliberation. 

"я был застрелен, _(I was shot),_ " he answers, voice grating from disuse. It's more words than he's said in the past 24 hours, combined. Good sign. In Russian. Not a good sign, but it's not exactly a typical indicator of a murder spree, so. 

"Хорошо, я могу помочь вам с этим _(It's alright, I can help with that),_ " Kit says, wondering just how the hell she's gonna keep that promise. She gets the impression that he's not doing so hot in the cognitive department. He's probably starving if he hadn't been eating, and, combined the far too much blood on the floor, it's a wonder he's still conscious.

* * *

Kit has never had less of an inclination to oggle a shirtless person in her home before, despite how many _muscles_ the guy has, becuase she's fighting the urge to swear as she looks at him.

"Hey," Kit asks on a whim as she soaks a washcloth in rubbing alcohol, "What's your name?"

"I am The Asset," comes the response, and Kit winces at the frigid pain that precedes it. God damn, they messed this guy up.

"Is that what you _want_ me to call you?" Kit asks, realizing she can't just talk to this guy- she needs to watch her wording.

"Yes, _no_ -" he says, and Kit presses the washcloth to a particularly nasty cut, cutting him off. She has to wince, squeezing her eyes shut, before she can continue. 

"Hey, buddy, it's okay. I won't hurt you for answering truthfully," Kit says, and she sees Sad Eyes turn his head like he wants to look at her, before snapping back to staring at the wall. He, clearly, doesn't believe her.

"Okay, let's try this again. Everyone has a name- they're kinda important. You can pick any name you want, and I don't think you like Asset that much, do you?" Kit asks, continuing to wipe away the dried blood and whatever else had congealed on this guy's back. She's sticking his pungent ass in the shower right after this if she has to wash him herself.

"I don't know," he says, and it's the truth. 

"Okay," Kit says. His backs starting to look more human-colored, which is good, even if he's ruined the washcloth. It's quiet for a stretch of time, save for Winter Wonderland's freakily even breathing- the only time he winces is when she's applying butterfly bandages to a particularly nasty cut on his ribs.

"Sorry," Kit murmurs after he goes tense. She pauses her movements, furrows her eyebrow, and attempts to work through the frankly nauseating bout of pain-fear-confusing settling in her gut. It takes her a moment to realize that- holy shit, he'd thought he'd be punished for wincing, and. Dios Mio, the poor son of a bitch had never been apologized to before.

Luckily, before she can even begin to think of a way to approach that one, Baby Blues swallows thickly, and Kit can tell he has something to say.

"What is it?" She asks, because what's the point of telepathy if you don't abuse its privileges sometimes?

"James," he says after a moment. It's an awkward, rough tone, and Kit is hit head-on by a hurricane of Russian soldier-speak to the brain a moment later, but it's _progress_.

"James, huh? Good choice, I like that name,"

James doesn't respond- but that's never stopped her in the past. Kit's been described, by nearly every teacher she's ever been taught by long enough for them to form an opinion on her, as _talkative_ , as well as a few poorly-disguised synonyms for misbehaved. Sue her, she got good grades and enjoyed the sound of her own voice.

So she talks- about why her mom named her Kiara and how she refuses to respond to the name nowadays- too formal, she says, and she means it reminds her of authority figures and her many poor experiences therein. About old teachers and old friends and telegraphing her every move all the while, bandaging wounds that aren't quite healed and applying butterfly bandages to the deeper gashes (she'd learned, with Steve, that stitches are more effort than they're worth). She's mastered the art of talking for hours and revealing nothing important at all. By the time she's done, it's nearly noon and even the admittedly dim kitchen is alight in the bright afternoon sun.

"Well, James," she says, smiling at the shirtless, bloody man sat in her kitchen, "It's nice to meet you. I'm Kit,"


End file.
